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Overview

A king with five daughters seeks husbands from outside his city, but his youngest daughter chooses a visiting young man. At the newcomer’s suggestion, the other daughters choose their own suitors from a procession, marking the men with apples. The king then demands a different apple: one whose scent makes an old person young again. Four suitors threaten their younger companion unless he supplies the solution. He collects their severed fingers as tokens and leaves them waiting outside the city while he crosses the desert to the ogress’s city.

He finds the ogress grinding and approaches from behind to nurse at her breast, invoking a relationship of fosterage. She accepts him as belonging to the ogres’ family and gives directions for the quest. Her advice connects a hair from the ogre king’s horse with fire inside the garden and identifies a tree bearing five fruits. He must remain silent while plucking them and returning; only the smallest has the rejuvenating power. The account compresses his actual collection into his return with the apples. He hides the special fruit against his breast and distributes the other four to his companions.

The king smells each larger apple in turn while looking into a mirror, without result. At the visitor’s instruction he changes which hands hold mirror and special apple, smells the small fruit and sees his beard turn black and new white teeth grow. He becomes young and announces that this successful son-in-law will inherit the throne. After the king’s eventual death the visitor succeeds him and refuses to give the other daughters to the four companions. The ogress is a helpful fosterer in this episode, not its adversary; Basset’s extended adoption comparisons remain an editorial context rather than proof of a universal living custom.

Found grinding in ogress cityAccepts foster-kin relationshipAdvises garden questOgre king’s horse-hair conditionSilence requirementIdentifies smallest magical apple
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Origins & earliest records

René Basset, Nouveaux contes berbères (1897), no. 109, La pomme de jeunesse, complete pp. 125–130, headed Mzab. Original note 199, p. 332, names Miloud as communicating the text at Mélika in 1885. Earlier Étude sur la Zénatia du Mzab, pp. 124–130, remains a bibliography lead.

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Records & interpretation

Complete original narrative inspected in DjVu pages164–169, printed pp. 125–130, through rejuvenation, announced inheritance and eventual succession. Note199 checked on page371, printed p. 332. Beginning of comparative note 203 checked on page378, printed p. 339; no whole multi-page adoption essay reading claimed.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Nouveaux contes berbères

    René Basset, translator and editor; text communicated by Miloud · 1897

    No. 109, complete pp. 125–130; source note 199, p. 332; comparative note 203 beginning, p. 339, distinguished.

Family & connections

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References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Primary communicated narrative in collected translation; original facsimiles inspectedOriginal edition, complete youth-apple quest and source noteResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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